Chapter 149: Digging a Tunnel at Night

"What are you doing?"

Li Guoqiang's face darkened, and he said with some displeasure: "Do you still want to make it clear to me now?"

"okay!"

Seeing this, Qu Yinfeng hurriedly continued to persuade: "Ping'er, since Qiangzi is willing to give you money, then you can just keep it! When Qiangzi needs money in the future, you can give it back to him!"

"That"

Xu Yuping glanced at Qu Yinfeng, then nodded and agreed happily: "Okay, then I'll keep the money first, and I'll give it to you when you need it!"

After saying that, she put the money away, then looked at Li Guoqiang with tenderness on her face, wishing she could take action right away and serve him well.

In her memory, her former dead husband never gave her money for household expenses, and even the hens she raised with her own hard work of cutting grass and catching insects never laid a single egg in her hands. Her wicked mother-in-law sold them all, so that sometimes she even had to beg her husband to buy some toilet paper to deal with her menstrual period before she could get a few cents.

In comparison, Li Guoqiang hasn't even eaten the meat yet, but he has already taken the initiative to give her so much money. There is simply a huge difference between them.

This also made her more certain that her choice was correct, and at the same time made her fall in love with Li Guoqiang from the bottom of her heart, no longer just for the sake of repaying a favor or for survival.

Li Guoqiang was slightly happy when he saw Xu Yuping's somewhat sad eyes. Then he picked up the remaining 100 yuan and stuffed it directly into Qu Yinfeng's hand.

"Auntie, please take this 100 yuan. It's a gift from Sister Yuping and I to you!"

"Good good!"

Qu Yinfeng was slightly stunned when she heard the words, then she immediately reacted and started cheering hurriedly.

She knew that this money was said to be a gift to honor her, but in fact it was a betrothal gift from Li Guoqiang.

If she agrees to accept the money now, it means that Xu Yuping has completely become Li Guoqiang's person from then on. No matter how Li Guoqiang disciplines Xu Yuping in the future, she, as a mother, can no longer interfere.

However, what she valued from the beginning to the end was Li Guoqiang as a person, not his money.

Therefore, after picking up the 100 yuan, she handed all the money to Xu Yuping without much thought.

"Come, Ping'er, take this money. From now on, our family will be managed by you and Qiangzi."

The implication was that the 100 yuan should be regarded as a dowry for Xu Yuping. At the same time, it was also a requirement that Xu Yuping should support the family together with Li Guoqiang in the future and not abandon her and Xu Dani.

As someone who has been through this, Xu Yuping could certainly understand what Qu Yinfeng meant, and she also understood why Li Guoqiang suddenly gave Qu Yinfeng so much money.

So she just glanced at Li Guoqiang, and when she found that he had no intention of objecting, she hurriedly reached out to take the money, planning to find an opportunity to give the money to Li Guoqiang later.

Zhu Caixia was sitting nearby. When she saw this situation, a look of longing appeared on her face, as if she had already seen the day when she would replace Xu Yuping and become the mistress of the family.

Xu Dani, on the other hand, looked at it with a confused look on her face. She had no idea what was going on. She only knew that her older brother Li Guoqiang had made a lot of money again and bought a lot of things for the family.

Soon, Li Guoqiang took the iron pot and went to the wooden house next door to replace the large clay pot on the stove, and then continued to polish the wooden boards to make doors and windows.

Xu Yuping first prepared a pot of tea for Li Guoqiang, and then sorted out the things they bought today with Qu Yinfeng.

After finishing the arrangement, Qu Yinfeng looked at the floral cloth which was only twelve feet long and four taels of cotton, and directly asked Xu Yuping to take the floral cloth and cotton to make a new cotton-padded jacket for Zhu Caixia.

Xu Yuping knew that Qu Yinfeng, Xu Dani, and Li Guoqiang were not short of clothes at the moment. Only she and Zhu Caixia had not bought new clothes for many years. So she didn't hesitate and immediately got busy with scissors and needle and thread.

At this time, Zhu Caixia didn't know that she would soon have new clothes to wear. She and Xu Dani were surrounding Li Guoqiang, watching him busy and helping him, appearing to be very well-behaved and sensible.

Before long, Li Guoqiang used the mortise and tenon structure to make a simple wooden door and a door frame, and then installed the door frame and door together at the door of the wooden house.

Then he added some cement slurry to fill and seal the gaps between the door frame and the wall, as well as the gaps between the wooden boards. He also buried a piece of wood in the ground as a threshold.

In this way, you basically don’t have to worry about the cold wind outside.

After making sure there was no problem with the door, he went back to making the windows.

Compared to doors, windows are undoubtedly more delicate and take longer to make. He had just finished making the window frame when Qu Yinfeng came to call him for lunch.

After dinner, he continued to work for more than two hours and finally successfully made and installed the windows. Then he pasted the hemp paper he had bought in the morning on the windows and evenly applied a layer of soybean oil.

This will make the hemp paper stronger and not afraid of rain, wind or sun.

Afterwards, he did not stop, but continued to build a simple wooden shed on top of the stove to shelter from rain and snow.

Since the project was not large, he finished it in a short time.

Looking at the square wooden house in front of him, which blended in with the two adobe houses next to it, he couldn't help but feel a faint sense of accomplishment in his heart.

Then, without even having time to be happy, he immediately took the shovel, hoe, spade and basket, walked into the wooden house, and started digging a tunnel in the innermost corner on the left side of the door.

Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani carried all the excavated soil out and piled it next to the well, ready to be used to make adobe bricks later.

He kept digging until dark, and he successfully dug out a pit that was 1 meter long, 0.8 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep.

At this rate, it would take at least two days to complete the digging of the tunnel.

Because he was worried that the construction period would be delayed and would be discovered, he gave it a little thought and decided to use the small world to collect soil and start digging overnight while Qu Yinfeng and Xu Yuping fell asleep.

This way, you can avoid being accidentally discovered and save time in moving the soil.

So, in the evening, after eating, taking a bath, and telling fairy tales to Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani, he would crawl into bed and silently practice health-preserving breathing techniques. When Xu Yuping and Qu Yinfeng fell asleep, he would quietly get up and go to the wooden house to dig a tunnel.

After a whole night of hard work, he not only successfully dug the pit to a depth of 3.5 meters, but also dug a passage 1 meter high, 0.8 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep at the bottom of the pit towards the outer house.

Afterwards, he took out the collected soil and piled it beside the well, then ran to the outer room and dug the same hole.

By the time Xu Yuping woke up and made breakfast, he had dug just over half a meter deep. If nothing unexpected happened, he estimated that he would be able to complete the tunnel after another day of digging.

Xu Yuping walked to the outer room and saw Li Guoqiang sweating profusely under the dim kerosene lamp. She was stunned for a moment, then hurried forward and said with a worried look on her face: "Qiangzi, why are you up so early to work? What if you get tired?"

"fine!"

Li Guoqiang raised his hand and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, then he laughed and said, "I'm fine! Don't worry!"

"That"

Xu Yuping pursed her lips, then said with some distress: "Then you don't have to rush so much! If you want it, I'll give it to you!"

"Ah!"

Li Guoqiang looked at Xu Yuping's shy look with her head down, and he felt happy. Then he waved his hand and said, "There's no rush. Although I can't give you a status, I can at least pick a good day and let you marry into my family."

"Ok!"

Xu Yuping felt sweet in her heart when she heard this, and then she hurriedly turned around to get a towel and helped Li Guoqiang wipe the sweat off his face.

"okay!"

Li Guoqiang waited for Xu Yuping to finish wiping, then whispered, "You go and cook! I'll try to dig this tunnel quickly to prevent it from being discovered by accident."

"Then be careful not to get tired!"

Seeing that Li Guoqiang insisted, Xu Yuping did not try to persuade him anymore. She just gave him a few words of advice and then turned around to busy herself at the stove.

Not long after, Qu Yinfeng, Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani also woke up one after another, hurriedly finished their breakfast, and helped Li Guoqiang dig the tunnel.

It took most of the day to dig the tunnel, and it was not until around three in the afternoon that the tunnel was finally completed.

Afterwards, Li Guoqiang first polished the tunnel, and then nailed a layer of small wooden sticks around and on the bottom of the pit to prevent his clothes from getting dirty when passing through the tunnel in the future, and at the same time to provide support for the tunnel.

Next, he got two wooden ladders and installed them on both sides of the tunnel entrance. Finally, he made two wooden boards to cover the tunnel entrance.

Moreover, in order to avoid people noticing anything wrong, he deliberately mixed cement slurry and mud together, and then evenly smeared it on the wooden board cover to fake a mud floor. Unless you look carefully, you will not be able to find any difference between this place and other places.

In addition, the entrances he chose were all in the corners of the walls, so he only needed to pile some debris on them to ensure that there would be no problems.

After everything was done, he asked Xu Yuping to try passing through the tunnel several times and found that there was no problem. Then he went to the back mountain to pick up some relatively flat small stones and brought them back to pave the ground.

The wooden house was only about 20 to 30 square meters in total, with the large fire pit taking up nearly half of the area. Excluding the tunnel entrance and a portion of space for cabinets and sundries, there were only about ten square meters left to be paved with small stones.

By brushing the rewards from Jin Die, he soon got enough small stones. Then before dark, he smashed the small stones into the mud ground one by one, paving a primitive-style floor.

At this point, the work of building the wooden house has been successfully completed.

Next, he just needed to wait for the wooden house to be ventilated for a few days, and then buy a kang mat and lay it on the fire pit, and he could move in directly.

The next morning, after finishing breakfast, Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani kept staring at Li Guoqiang, like puppies waiting for their owner to run away.

Li Guoqiang was delighted upon seeing this, and hurried to Xu Guanglu's house to borrow the big flower, preparing to take Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani to the county town to attend the big market.

At this time, there were less than ten days left before the New Year, so he had to go buy some New Year's goods and fulfill his promise to take Xu Dani to the market.

Not long after, Dahuang and Dahua were seen pulling a sled, carrying Li Guoqiang, Zhu Caixia and Xu Dani, three people (one big and two small), running wildly on the snow, and soon disappeared at the entrance of the village.

Since the mahogany rabbit skin seat on the sled was not very spacious, Zhu Caixia squeezed next to Li Guoqiang, while Xu Dani let Li Guoqiang hold her in his arms.

This made him want to build a bigger sled.

However, in order to pull the big sled, you must have enough big dogs.

Thinking of this, he immediately thought of the wild wolf trapped in the small world, and felt a little disappointed.

Because last night, when he was taking care of his little world as usual, he saw that the wild wolf had lost its spirit due to hunger, so he tried to take a piece of meat to tame the wolf.

As a result, after he spent more than an hour trying to tame the wolf, the wolf still stood there baring its teeth at him, looking very aggressive, with no sign of being tamed at all.

This made him wonder if he had thought wolf taming was too simple.

Then, he carefully recalled the videos he watched online in his previous life, and vaguely remembered that he didn't seem to have seen anyone successfully tame a wolf.

As a result, his confidence in taming the wolf weakened a little.

If he had not discovered that he had successfully activated the animal taming skill in this way, he would have probably killed the wolf by now.

As they were thinking, Dahuang and Dahua had unknowingly completed one-third of the distance, and then slowly slowed down their running speed.

Li Guoqiang came to his senses and realized this. He hurriedly asked them to stop and rest, and took out the wild rabbit and snail noodles he had prepared in advance to feed them.

Wait until they have replenished their strength, and then continue to rush to the county town.

After walking and stopping along the way for nearly two hours, they finally arrived at the market.

As soon as she entered the market, Xu Dani's eyes were fixed on the strings of red, crystal clear candied haws, and Zhu Caixia also looked at the candied haws and swallowed quietly.

Seeing them like this, Li Guoqiang took out money and bought two without saying a word, then handed them directly to them.

Seeing this, Xu Dani did not bother to be polite with Li Guoqiang. She hurriedly reached out to take a string of candied haws, put it to her mouth, and started eating it with a happy look on her face.

Zhu Caixia, however, resisted the temptation, shook her head and said, "Uncle Qiangzi, I don't want it, you eat it!"

In her opinion, Li Guoqiang, the head of the family, didn't eat it, so how could she, the future daughter-in-law, eat it?
(End of this chapter)